Mr Arbuthnot said: "I just suggest the Bill should, as the Welsh equivalent Bill does, make it clear the word horse includes ponies and jennets."
Liberal Democrat David Heath intervened and said: "I do think the normal definition of a horse would involve anything which was of the same species as a horse, which is to say equus ferus caballus, which ponies and jennets are.
"The reason donkeys are separately identified is because they are not the same species - they are equus africanus asinus if I remember correctly, so they have to defined separately."
Mr Arbuthnot said: "You are almost certainly right. It is quite clear from your intervention that you know far more than I do about these matters - probably most matters."
He added: "If this amendment is unnecessary and we don't need to define what a horse is, as you suggest, then I will move on."
Councils! What would we do without them?
Wouldn't it have been more effective, if when they were putting together the law, they had just used the catch all term "equid"? It could have been accompanied by a few pictures of the variety of "equids" to illustrate to the ignorant.
ReplyDeleteThey state ponies are just small horses. They aren't - ponies and horses, apart from being defined by height at the withers, also have very different long bone proportions.
But they, like donkeys, are still equids
Well, it would, but I guess such thinking is beyond our 'betters'...
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